Ryan O’Rourke

Published Jun 3, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Ryan O’Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided’s CubbiesCrib. Whether it’s taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what’s going on. Outside of entertainment, he’s a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor’s in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

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Prepare to meet the new Bonnie & Clyde this week. On Friday, June 5, modern scream king and queen Kyle Gallner and Samara Weaving are linking up for a decidedly less scary, yet still thrilling new film in Carolina Caroline that has all the hallmarks of a classic romantic crime drama. Fresh off Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, Weaving plays the titular Carolina Daniels, whose long-desired path out of her small Texas town leads her to a charismatic con-man named Oliver (Gallner), who may just be the key to her freedom. Yet, their passion-fueled trip across the American Southwest also lands them in plenty of trouble with the law. Ahead of its release, Collider can exclusively share a tense new sneak peek following the couple as they try to evade the police in a kinetic, tense sequence.

Any classic romantic crime thriller needs some momentum, and the footage certainly has it in spades, as Oliver hurriedly forces a chef on a smoke break to take his and Carolina’s car and drive as a diversion. With sirens blaring in the distance, they rush through the back door of a restaurant, past screaming cooks and startled patrons, until they head back out onto the sidewalk and up the street to a hardware store. There’s a clear sense that Oliver has done this all before, as he leads Carolina to a set of tools they need to quickly steal a new vehicle that the police won’t be searching for. Once he’s hotwired the car, Carolina ditches her disguise and, at her partner-in-crime’s orders, gets in the trunk to avoid drawing further suspicion since the hunt is on for two crooks, not one.

Even in their little, rushed moments trying to escape the consequences of their actions, the leading duo of Carolina Caroline shows complete trust in one another. The chemistry between Weaving and Gallner will be what carries the film throughout this spiraling journey of blossoming love and passion during a criminal life on the run. Each con and increasingly risky decision they engage in will unfold against a backdrop soaked in a traditional Americana aesthetic, with a star-studded country music soundtrack featuring Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, Loretta Lynn, and many more backing Oliver and Carolina’s run as outlaws. Rounding out the cast alongside them are Kyra Sedgwick and Jon Gries.

The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.

You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.

You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.

You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.

You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.

Carolina Caroline marks a reunion for Gallner with his Dinner in America director Adam Carter Rehmeier, with Tom Dean penning the screenplay. While their last quirky rom-com effort became a cult darling, their latest collaboration found a wider audience at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, where it debuted to high marks. Collider’s Therese Lacson gave it an 8/10 in her review, writing, “From the country music needle drops to the oozing on-screen chemistry, anyone who loves a good crime movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously will need to get their butts into the theater for this one.” Speaking to Perri Nemiroff last year, Gallner credited Rehmeier for putting him in spots to succeed in showing a belief in his ability to carry a project so reliant on the charisma and bond of its leads.

“Just like with [Dinner in America] and with this, Adam has always taken a shot on me, where he will let me do things that most people will not let me do. And so he’s helped me, A., as an actor, get to play these roles, but B., also sort of change the narrative around who I am and how people see me as a performer. So, to be able to play something like this where I would have to either write it myself or whatever, I’m not given those kinds of shots all the time. So Adam gives me these opportunities that most of the time I would never have if it weren’t for him believing in me the way that he does.”

Carolina Caroline debuts in theaters on June 5. Check out our exclusive sneak peek in the player above.

Carolina Caroline ](/tag/movie/carolina-caroline/)

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Eric B. Fleischman, Tim White, Chris Abernathy, Trevor White, Stephen Braun

Kyle Gallner